Let's not talk about the politics behind this "banned" pro-gun ad

Seriously, why bother? It's already been rejected by the NFL for broadcast during Super Bowl XLVIII, so the pro-gun lobby got what they wanted: an opportunity to claim they are being silenced by the "liberal media".

Instead, let's talk about why this ad doesn't deserve its quarter-million YouTube views (so far). The writing is hamfisted, the acting forced, and the production abysmal.

Plus, there's that satire-worthy baby monitor reaction.

Yes, I shared it myself. But only as a warning to others. Now, let's all just agree to forget about this.

"God made a farmer" aims for the heartland

There's a lot of talk, today, about Dodge Ram borrowing interest for its heartland-friendly Super Bowl ad, "Farmer":


Not only does it borrow an emotional on-air poem by radio's Paul Harvey verbatim, but the slide show imagery also seems mostly "found". And then there's the open admission that the whole idea was lifted (with permission and credit) from a 2011 ad made by Farms.com, an agricultural news site.

Regardless of its creative originality, the ad has been called "the best ad of the Super Bowl" by Jalopnik and "the most striking Super Bowl ad" of 2012 by Slate.

It's certainly sentimental. And many farmers do, indeed, love God.

But what does God think of farmers?

In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 

Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? f you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." 

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Damn. I could be wrong. I probably am. But maybe, just maybe, God hates farmers just as much as he hates shrimp.

Was this ad with an affectionate old couple banned from the Super Bowl because it was for Pornhub?

[video yanked by YouTube, but you can still view it here]

That's what Pornhub claims, anyway. But then again, getting a Super Bowl ad rejected is much better publicity than actually paying $4 million for a 30-second spot. On the YouTube link, Pornhub writes: This was the Super Bowl commercial that was rejected by CBS. What do you think - should it have been rejected? Visit this page to vote Yes or No (link is Safe For Work): http://www.pornhub.com/event/superbowl The page is, in fact, "SFW," but that won't help you explain what you were doing at the pornhub.com domain. My wife knows I have to walk through bad internet neighbourhoods in the name of adblogging, so I'll take one for the team. This is what you get when you click:

As Jezebel's Lindy West writes:

This isn't a particularly interesting ad and I don't really give a care about PornHub (and, yes, obv I know I'm dumping free advertising on them exactly according to their plan), BUT. I love crap like this. Rigging the system! It's like strapping a Game Genie on SOCIETY! Now do it again, only make a commercial that actually entertains me. GO.

Yup.

The Chevy ad Ford didn't want you to see

According to Adrants, Ford tried to have this cheeky ad pulled from yesterday's Super Bowl lineup for obvious reasons.

Chevy, having spent some serious coing on production, refused. And we all had a good chuckle.




The only question the ad left me with was this:

When will they realize there are no women?

Oh, wait...



That will end well...

F'd Ad Fridays: Five hours of Adriana Lima

KIA seems to have taken their Super Bowl "teaser" rather literally, providing boys (and girls who like girls) five online hours of slow motion flag waving. Although I'm sure most viewers will be "done" in under five minutes.

Garth: Hey, are you done yet? I'm getting tired of holding it. 

Wayne: Yeah, that's what she said. 

(Here's the actual ad, in case you're tired of being teased.)

Via AdFreak 

Pussycat Dolls do nothing for GoDaddy

"Make your business and personal internet dreams come true"

There are lots of ways to waste your money producing Super Bowl ads. GoDaddy has found a new one — hiring the burlesque pop group Pussycat Dolls to sit around preening in the background of their very poorly produced ad.

Obligatory Honda CR-V Matthew/Ferris Post

Like many of you, I have already seen this on AdFreak and elsewhere. I'm just posting it so people stop sending it to me.



It's a really great piece of '80s homage, and is really kind to the source material as well as the actor's dignity. Well done, RPA.

More background info here and here.

It's not that I'm not also fascinated by the Super Bowl advertising orgy of conspicuous budget consumption. I just hate to be overly "me too" on this blog.

Does Your Brand Have Asperger's Syndrome?

Note: This is not an attempt to trivialize human autism spectrum disorders in any way. But this hit me the other day and the metaphor is apt.

Two current marketing truisms:

- A brand is a personality.


- Brands are more socially active than ever before.

But what if your brand has difficulty with its social skills?

Look at Groupon. It's a brand that is built on what it has to offer, which is deals! deals! deals! But when it made its first major branding foray on national advertising, despite being well-intentioned it ended up just pissing everyone off.

"He spit in this fish curry, didn't he?"

So what happened?

Let's compare the Groupon fiasco with some select symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome, based on social difficulties and inappropriate expression.

GILLBERG'S CRITERIA FOR ASPERGER'S DISORDER


1.Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction
(at least two of the following)
(a) inability to interact with peers
(b) lack of desire to interact with peers
(c) lack of appreciation of social cues
(d) socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior

Groupon's Super Bowl campaign showed complete misunderstanding of how the audience would react to its ads that made fun of social causes. This was immediately apparent in the flurry of "WTF?" Tweets among professional marketers and customers alike.

This apparently came as a complete surprise to the advertiser, who expected that a drunken football audience would "get" that it was subtly making fun of its own origins in the not-for-profit sector — despite having done nothing significant in advance to communicate it. It was as if we were all supposed to be in on a very private in-joke.

If you have friends or family with Asperger's, this may sound like a familiar situation. Inappropriate jokes, and random statements with absolutely no context, seem to come with the territory.

2.All-absorbing narrow interest
(at least one of the following)
(a) exclusion of other activities
(b) repetitive adherence
(c) more rote than meaning


3.Imposition of routines and interests
(at least one of the following)
(a) on self, in aspects of life
(b) on others

The Groupon brand owes much to the peculiarities of its founder, Andrew Mason, who is known for his bizarre answers to interviewers. When asked by the New York Times last year to confirm or deny rumours that Groupon was about to be bought out by Yahoo, he famously quipped: “Only if you want to talk about my other passion, building miniature dollhouses.”

4.Speech and language problems
(at least three of the following)
(a) delayed development
(b) superficially perfect expressive language
(c) formal, pedantic language
(d) odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics
(e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings

To me, this is sort-of about Groupon marketing and PR. When creating the ads, Groupon's agency (CP+B) failed to make any mention of the serious corporate social responsibility behind the campaign. (Later added as a last-ditch edit.) After the Super Bowl fiasco, it took the company almost 24 hours to respond to complaints. And it was too little, too late.

5.Non-verbal communication problems
(at least one of the following)
(a) limited use of gestures
(b) clumsy/gauche body language
(c) limited facial expression
(d) inappropriate expression
(e) peculiar, stiff gaze

And CP+B? Good Lord! The agency went into full defence mode. Rather than saying "sorry" and "we'll learn from this" — with empathy and humility — they just kept arrogantly hammering their Twitter followers with any positive press they could, along with too-late links to the original intent of Groupon's CSR.

6.Motor clumsiness: poor performance on neurodevelopmental examination

A week and a half later, they're still at it:

Despite the fact that the campaign has been killed.

So, what can be learned from all this? Well, when a person has difficulties with social integration, they can only work on personal strategies to deal with their own empathetic or communication deficits. (If you, or someone you love, is in this situation, start here.)

A brand is different. Even though the Groupon brand is — in some ways — and extension of its founder, it has outgrown that phase. Groupon is now well-enough known that its brand is in the hands of its consumers. Its social relations will now determine its brand value.

The good news for Groupon is that it can change its personality much more easily than a person can. In a group effort, Groupon's community manager, PR people, and whatever ad agency they choose in the future can work to educate the public about their real intentions and heal old wounds.

Plus, it can't have been that bad. I keep seeing Groupon updates from friends on my Facebook newsfeed.

Let's gang up on Groupon

As usual, last night's crop of Super Bowl ads included the good, the bad, and the ugly.

One of the most complained about among my Twitter gang wasn't even one of the sexy ones. It was the Groupon spot, by CP + B:



Don't get me wrong. I have a sense of humour, and it can be quite a cynical one. But I still think this was a big mistake for a brand that is going mainstream.

Why? Because social media have given people their own soap boxes, which they are more than happy to use. And those people have a tendency to take things very, very seriously.

The joke was intended to be absurd, but the absurdity presumed a lack of seriousness in the whole matter. It was an attempt at post-serious humor - but most people with common sense agree that the struggles of Tibet still deserve respect and seriousness. The joke is on anyone who really cares. It came across as the kind of out-of-touch humor that overprivileged, spiritually mean, advertising industry creatives (specifically, the kind that kids refer to as "douchebags") would come up with. That's one explanation why the commercial was offensive, but view it below and offer your own if you like. Another perspective: As Rabbi Eliyahu Fink said on Twitter tonight, "Amazing. More people are offended by Groupon's ads than the coarse objectification of women in EVERY SINGLE OTHER AD!"

- Read Write Web

By using the troubles of the Tibetan people to advertise its services, Groupon managed to infuriate, well, everyone. Seconds after the spot aired, Twitter erupted with posts of outrage about the commercial. And the hate-fest has only increased this morning, with outlets like Forbes reporting that both Chinese and Tibetan activists were outraged by the ad. (The Chinese didn’t like the fact that the commercial declared the Tibetan people “in trouble” — a fact they vehemently dispute; and, obviously, Tibetans don’t like it because their plight has been cheapened by becoming the set up for a $15 coupon.)

- Digital Trends

Who is in charge of decision-making at Groupon? Because not only did the discount site turn down $6 billion from Google last year, they also produced the worst Super Bowl ad of 2011. And cast Timothy Hutton in it!

There must have been someone along the way who said, you know, "This isn't actually funny enough to overcome the callous treatment not just of Tibet but of earnest advocacy in general, guys," right? Wasn't there some courageous middle manager somewhere who said, "Listen, I totally 'get' the joke, it's just not that funny, and not really worth it, and weirdly hostile to Tibet, and people who try to make a difference," or something? Not even anyone who pointed out that Tibetans don't really eat a lot of fish?

- Gawker

The funny — or rather "tragic" thing about this is that according to their blog, Groupon had set up to make fun of themselves and to help the very causes they were lampooning:

Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world.

You can view the already aired commercials, as well as new ones as we release them, at SaveTheMoney.org . And if you’ve saved enough money for yourself and feel like saving something else, you can donate to mission-driven organizations that are doing great work for the causes featured in our PSA parodies. If you guys pony up, Groupon will contribute matching donations of up to $100,000 for three featured charities – Rainforest Action Network, buildOn, and the Tibet Fund — and Groupon credit of up to $100,000 for contributions made to Greenpeace.

Oh, man. So Groupon, which isn't even three years old but is growing fast, wanted to beat its sudden rush of competition by becoming a household name. Spending $3 million to get into every American household via the Super Bowl must have seemed like a great idea.

But you know what's not a great idea? Putting sophisticated and/or obscure attempts at self-deprecating humour on during a football game, when emotions and expectations are at an all-time high. And poking fun at issues that people tend to get really emotional about as well. You add that match to the dry pile of hay that is a bunch of drunk people on Twitter, and you have something that is very much beyond your control.

zone: collapse
size: 300x600
keywords: origin=gawker, visited=gawkerfront, refer=search

The Tibet ad was part of a series, all starring well-known Hollywood actors. The other two made fun of deforestation and saving the whales:






I actually feel bad for Groupon. They spent all that money, and all that creative talent, just to piss people off. And yet, their ads were not mean-spirited. Like Guest's films, they feature a particular style of humour that just isn't accessible — or even funny — to everyone. And they managed to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in front of all the wrong people.

Perhaps Groupon should forget about going mainstream and focus more on niche markets.

Like people who buy ironic t-shirts online:

It bears repeating...

I missed the original broadcast, but apparently the U.S. Air Force Reserve ran this ad during the Super Bowl (link HERE - via AdFreak)

Don't look for it on YouTube, or on the Reserves' recruiting site, in the news, or almost anywhere else. It's essentially been scrubbed from the Internet.

Why? If you're a White Stripes fan, you probably have a clue. From their site:



Despite the damning move of having eliminated the offending spot with extreme prejudice, the Air Force issued an official statement: "We had no intention to use existing music from The White Stripes or any other performer. Any similarity to them or other artists was certainly not intentional."

I don't buy it. I've been doing this long enough to know that clients and agencies do get "inspired" a little too literally by copyrighted material when scoring new ads. Particularly after finding out that the artist they wanted to use is either too expensive, or refuses to sell out.

Just five years ago, Tom Waits sued General Motors Corp. and McCann Erickson over an Opel ad that used a singer and musicians imitating his trademark style (after he turned them down).

For those of you unfamiliar with the White Stripes, here's the original song.

Judge for yourself:

Life in 12 Easy Searches

Like many Canadians, I had to wait until after the Saints fans finally partied themselves out to see what I really wanted to get out of the Super Bowl: The ads. (Okay, I could have previewed some of them, but where's the fun in that?)

And as usual, I was mostly disappointed. More smut from GoDaddy. Megan Fox duckfacing it up for Motorola. Vizio snatching borrowed interest from Beyonce and a bunch of tired old Internet memes.

And then there was Google, doing its first ever major TV buy after this campaign enjoyed several months of viral success:



Two words:



While others invested in celebrities and special effects, Google relied on the way its brand is woven into everyday life. So we get to see an American studying abroad, falling in love, and succeeding in the ever-challenging LTR.

This is what good advertising is supposed to be: relevant, entertaining, emotive and authentic. It is everything I strive for. Great work.

Another ad I enjoyed watching was the Cars.com "Timothy Richmond" biography. Although the idea, tone, and even music are lifted pretty neatly from the opening sequence of The Royal Tenenbaums.



You can watch the rest of the 2010 lineup at Mashable or AdAge.